While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened his six senior ministers to discuss the tension with Washington, US President Barack Obama on Wednesday night said the US-Israeli relationship was not in crisis over the approval of an east Jerusalem building plan during US Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel last week.
A powerful Congress member says he expects Congress to send President Obama an Iran sanctions bill next month that wlll include tougher enforcement provisions for violators.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke on the phone Tuesday night in a bid to ease tensions between the U.S. and Israel over a plan to construct 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
The US Embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning confirmed that US Special Mideast envoy George Mitchell will not arrive in Israel on Tuesday evening as planned, but denied reports that the trip was postponed because Washington was waiting for a formal Israeli response over its concerns on an east Jerusalem housing plan.
The sharp criticism by the Obama administration of Israel’s announcement to build 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem has been rebuked by a number of US senators from both the Democratic and the Republican parties.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who is currently on a visit to the Middle East, has not visited the grave of Theodor Herzl in Jerusalem, but does plan to go to the grave of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
Israel became the first country outside South America to sign a free trade agreement with Mercosur, a common market among four Latin American countries.
Last summer, when the relationship between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations was getting off to what appeared to be a rocky start, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was at pains -- twice -- to deny that he had been "summoned" to the State Department for a dressing down.
